


A is for Author

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 02:37:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15257568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Henry's life during the sixth curse as he writes the book about the family he wishes he had.





	A is for Author

He remembered reading a book of fairytales as a child, and remembered that it was his favourite, and yet this made no sense to him. Who, after all, would have given such a gift to Henry Mills? Raised in the system, never in a foster home for any longer than a few months, it didn’t exactly lend itself to forming that kind of bond with anyone. He must have stolen it from one of those group homes or something, that made more sense.

He’d been asked by a fan at a book signing once where he got his inspiration from, whether any of his characters were based on anyone he’d known in real life (adding that she hoped Rumplestiltskin wasn’t). The truth was, a lot of the characters were based around the people he wished he’d had in his life growing up. And knowing nothing about his birth family had explained why he had written himself so many relatives: birth mother Emma and adoptive mother Regina, stepfather figures Killian and Robin as well as his father Neal, aunt Zelena, two sets of grandparents, even if his step grandmother preferred to be known as Belle rather than Grandma. As he wrote about their adventures, he wondered if any of his birth family had any of their qualities: Snow and Charming’s determination to find each other at all costs, Emma Swan’s courage, Rumplestiltskin’s cunning. He would never know, and he’d long since come to terms with that. There were times, a long time ago, when he’d wondered about trying to trace his birth family, but had ended up deciding to drop it. He’d heard too many of Phil Simpson’s taunts across the locker room in middle school about how his family hadn’t wanted him; they’d finally sunk in enough for Henry to decide he wasn’t pursuing it. He’d thought about it a bit more when Abigail was born, but had eventually decided not to. What did he want with them, anyway? Lauren and Abigail were his family, and he didn’t need anyone else. Since meeting Lauren in the office where his agent worked, she’d encouraged him every step of the way with his writing, never let him give up even when he was getting slammed by idiot reviewers who felt that Prince Charming’s identical twin story was too derivative of the musical Blood Brothers or making Red Riding Hood herself be the wolf was a little far fetched. With her at his side, Henry felt he could be successful in his chosen career; he could do anything.

He'd first had the idea at school, when his class had had some fairy stories read to them. As he’d listened to the tale of Snow White and Prince Charming, Henry had started to wonder what it would be like if they were his family. He’d also wondered about the Evil Queen, whether she was really as black as she was painted in the tale. “She’s called the EVIL Queen, stupid,” Phil Simpson had snapped. “Of course she’s that bad.” But Henry continued to wonder whether there was something in the Evil Queen’s past that had made her that way, and that had influenced the way he wrote the character of Regina when he came to write his book. (And managed to remain polite when Phil Simpson later came to one of his publicity appearances, acted like they’d been friends at school and started talking about what an original idea it was to have given the Evil Queen a backstory that explained her behaviour.) 

Sometimes he’d worked on developing those ideas in his creative writing classes at school. After their class project on Peter Pan where Henry had written a story where Peter was the bad guy, he’d had a school report talking about how he had a very active imagination, and he didn’t think it was a compliment. But what did it matter? No one actually read his school reports anyway, and no one noticed when he threw that one away. But it inspired him to come up with the teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard, the teacher Henry wished he’d had, to write about how she had given Henry the book, how she had encouraged him.

Henry hoped one day his words would encourage someone too.


End file.
